That is, the time of the year when forgetful boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives (and beyond) find themselves rushing to their local florists/supermarket/stinking horrible garage to pick up some last minute V Day surprises.

But with our handy guide of five of the loveliest drinks on the market this Feast of St Valentine, you're already halfway there. And if you're single, might we suggest a night in or out with friends after a few of these tipples…

Austria's Pink Lake LGBTI summer festival program includes boat cruise parties, a lakeside beach club, a very hip Club Night and lederhosen-clad hotties so fabulous, you’ll be spinning a la Julie Andrews

Picture this: A lake laps at your feet as you soak in the late summer sun.

You glance up and see an oiled-up beauty temporarily blocking your view of the Austrian Alps. As you follow that body you take in the gorgeous lake and charming villas, and you just roll over to top up your tan.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

That’s just one of the many daytime visions you’re sure to have at Pink Lake in Austria, taking over the must-see-to-believe quant town of Velden this year from 28 to 31 August.

A long-standing children's charity has been attacked by a conservative group for offering counseling to young people struggling with their sexuality, and supporting the inaugural Pink Dot Hong Kong rally to be held in June

A conservative group called the Justice Alliance has launched an attack on the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong – a long-standing charity that was established in 1936 to work with children and youths – for 'siding with sexual minorities' and 'brainwashing' children by offering counselling to young people struggling with their sexuality, according to a South China Morning Post report on Friday.

Notorious US anti-gay pastor Scott Lively has claimed the gay community dropped the pink triangle in favor of the rainbow pride flag because of his book the Pink Swastika which claims the Nazi Party was a homosexual organization

Notorious Holocaust revisionist and anti-gay Christian pastor Scott Lively is planning to release a new edition of his book The Pink Swastika in which he claims that the Nazi Party was at its core a homosexual organization and that the number of gay men it persecuted has been vastly overestimated.

The book was first published in 1995 and Lively now says he is working on a 5th edition of it in which he claims to show more evidence that the Nazis were gay despite mainstream historians rejecting its premise.

Segregating and color-coding girls' and boys' toys stunts their development and could be holding us all back

The ‘traditional marriage’ advocates have been obsessed since day one with listing the many things that same-sex couples ‘could not do’, which, clearly they not only can do but are already doing.

The underlying point all the irrational statements have in common is one foundational core its advocates desperately want to ‘protect’. That point is men and women hold mutually exclusive roles in the family and neither of those roles can or should be filled by a member of the opposite gender.

Hong Kong is hosting Asia’s largest LGBT pride event for the third year in a row which will run from September to November

The third annual Pink Season, Hong Kong’s LGBT festival, will kick off on 12 September 2013 and close on 10 November in 2013.

The two month festival will showcase collaboration between local LGBT organizations and artists as well as a bunch of fun dance parties.

The 2012 Pink Season schedule includes a Pink Season Picnic, the Mr Gay Hong Kong pageant, the Floatilla party cruise, the Out in the Open beach carnival, Gay Day Asia, the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and a series of outdoor and indoor Pink Season Sports events.

After 15,000 people showed-up last year organizers had wanted to move to a bigger venue, but that wasn't arranged in time so Pink Dot remained in Singapore's Speaker's Corner - the only place where citizens can legally protest.

The Japanese island of Okinawa will host a Pink Dot LGBT pride festival on 14 July after being inspired by the Singaporean event of the same name

The Japanese island of Okinawa will host its first ever Pink Dot LGBT pride festival on 14 July.

Organizers of Pink Dot Okinawa were inspired by the event of the same name in Singapore where instead of marching, because legal protests are restricted to a single park in the city, LGBTs and their allies gather to form a circle of pink in the park.

Pink Dot Okinawa is being billed as an event where people who want ‘a society in which sexual minorities' living is easy’ gather wearing something pink to represent that thought.

The award ceremony, which will be held towards the end of 2013, will honor the most LGBT-friendly brands in Asia in categories such as entertainment, travel and fashion. Individuals will be awarded in categories such as Favorite Style Icon and Favorite Bachelor.

Pink Dot 2013 is 'for a Singapore we can all call home', campaign video launched and JP Morgan join Google and Barclays as sponsors

The theme of this year's LGBT 'freedom to love' event in Singapore, Pink Dot, is 'home', as shown in the campaign video launched yesterday.

The video shows LGBT people searching for acceptance - an older gay man is prevented from visiting his partner in hospital, a transgender teen is bullied at school and a young woman's parents shut-down communication when they find out about her same-sex relationship.

The film ends with at Pink Dot, where LGBT people and allies have gathered for one day a year over the last five years to show their support by wearing pink.

Pink Lake festival is back for all European gay festival lovers from 29 August - 1 September.

The beautiful Lake Woerthersee will once again be decked out with pride events from all around the world – bringing members of all LGBT communities together for a weekend of fun and frolics to end the long hot European summer.

The latest men's line by French fashion brand Mugler features the upside-down pink triangle used to identify homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps

This year's Paris Fashion Week saw a reappearance of a former Nazi symbol in a trendy fashion label's menswear presentation.

French fashion brand Bugler incorporated into its latest men's line the inverted pink triangle, a badge originally sewn onto the garments of convicted homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps.

Reclaimed as a symbol of gay pride since the 1970s, the pink triangle used in Mugler's latest men's collection was the only dash of color along highlighter green and neon blue in a predominantly monochromatic collection.

As Easy-Bake Ovens finally market themselves at boys, Bob Witeck says marketers are starting to see the rewards, not the risks, in targeting LGBT consumers

Thanks, in part, to an online petition started this fall by a 13-year-old New Jersey girl, the global toymaker Hasbro recently discovered that many little boys like cooking and the always-popular Easy-Bake Ovens. Isn’t it time, she asked, that Hasbro started including boys like her little brother in their advertising and no longer limit their ovens to the colors pink and purple?

'I’ve had a lot of my gay boys around, but my gay girls are my rootstalk'

By the way she looks and acts, singer Pink says she 'should' be gay but just isn't. But her lesbian and bisexual female fans do mean the world to her.

'They’ve been the most loyal part of what I do,' she tells The Advocate in an interview out this week. 'They’ve been my most loyal friends, to be honest. I’ve had a lot of my gay boys around, but my gay girls are my rootstalk. They’re my honesty in an ocean of bullshit.'

From this Saturday and until the beginning of December, Hong Kong turns a rose hue with dozens of events celebrating ‘pink power’

Pink Season will have it all: Mr Gay Hong Kong, Asia’s largest LGBT film festival, art, theatre, parties and a gay day at Disneyland, but not, thanks to a break-down of co-operation within the community, a parade.

After some on-off years Hong Kong Pride Parade is scheduled back on for the 10 November, but parade organizers are not working with Pink Season any more. They recently announced that they did not want to be included in the listings for Pink Season, so what would have been a key event in the series is going it alone.